Nearly two decades ago the Paris-based North African flautist Magic Malik was tipped as the next big star of world music, such was his ability to shape shift between styles such as Afro-beat, Guadelopean folk, Indian ragas and Latin jazz. For a while he was everywhere, turning up onstage with the likes of Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traore, and with Buena Vista bassist Cachaito Lopez. But Malik was never a people-pleasing generalist, preferring instead to test the waters of the European new jazz, bringing melodic invention and microtonal cheek to compositions that arguably lost him his mainstream audience and saw him head off to pursue his own sometimes rambling path. Now here he is with his quintet, tackling the standards he purports have inspired him, setting out his stall with Blue Note-style cover art and reimagining everything from ‘Daahoud’ by Clifford Brown and ‘In Walked Bud’ by Monk to Shorter's ‘Fee Fi Fo Fum’ in the small-group style of the 1950s and 1960s – with added humour and imagination. While there's echoes of Eric Dolphy and Booker Little there in the meeting of Malik's flute and Olivier Laisney's trumpet, and a Blakey-esque dynamism to drummer Stefano Lucchini, it's Malik and his microtonal wizardry – oh, and occasional full-blown vocalese – that enchants.